


Metamorphosis

by Aoki



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, Needles, Trans Alucard | Adrian Vlad Tepes | Arikado Genya, Trans Male Character, implied suicidal ideation, magical transformation, psychedelic dream sequences, slight body horror, trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22756192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoki/pseuds/Aoki
Summary: "From across an ocean of distance, his wounded flesh whispered its quiet song to him. It told him to sleep. He would sleep for a thousand years if he had to. He would sleep until tectonic forces tugged the continents apart and the greatest buildings on Earth eroded away. He would sleep until the nights were calm and the pain in his soul ebbed.Perhaps for an eternity then , he thought."Adrian seeks refuge after his father nearly kills him.To live, he must change shape.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	Metamorphosis

Through the labyrinthine passages beneath Greşit, a lone figure descended. His hand was clamped tight over a cleaved chest. Blood oozed slowly through the gaps in his fingers. He had just learned firsthand how impenetrable his father's madness truly was. He swallowed. 

Entire shoals of thought swam like glittering flecks of light through his mind. He sensed them more than he understood them. They were too complex, too slippery, and he was but a shipwrecked sailor borne aloft in the swell. The waves crashed over him and his vision ran like water and grew dim. He reached desperately for an anchor. 

His hand found the hard iron bannister next to him. It’s icy bite felt distant, unreal. He struggled to remember himself.

His name. 

_ Adrian Tepes.  _

The first time Adrian spoke the words, he was alone. The name fell out of his mouth quietly, a fledgling plunging into the unknown from the mother’s nest. He turned it over and over in his mind; trying to get used to the new taste. It was a crackling flame on his tongue, a spell to affix his true self to the perceived reality of the living. 

“Adrian.” he rasped to nobody in particular. 

“My name is Adrian Tepes”.

He remembered the first time his mother used  _ Adrian:  _ she was in her lab analysing a patient's blood sample and it rolled off her tongue as if it were always there -- but had just needed the right prompt to be released. And so he felt an unexpected song in his soul. It was the  _ right  _ name _.  _ He was right. He wasn't lying to anyone. 

In the present moment, he stepped forward. His vision faded back into view.

On the day he told his father his name, he’d been nervous, but Dracula had simply kissed him on the forehead and used it from that day forward without another word. Alucard supposed that his father considered gendering a contrivance of mortals. 

It was difficult to move his limbs the way he wanted to, but he could move them. He made progress. If he could just get to the transportation mechanism, he'd be able to collapse into his coffin and forget. He'd forget everything if he could. 

For a moment, he fully experienced the pain in his chest. He'd always known deep down that his father's tolerance of humanity was conditional at best. For most of his life, Adrian had been buffeted by two worlds. He was human and vampire, living and dead, male mind in ill-fitting flesh. 

He drifted up upon that thought, rising to a point where he experienced his body from afar. From across an ocean of distance, his wounded flesh whispered its quiet song to him. It told him to sleep. He would sleep for a thousand years if he had to. He would sleep until tectonic forces tugged the continents apart and the greatest buildings on Earth eroded away. He would sleep until the nights were calm and the pain in his soul ebbed. 

_ Perhaps for an eternity then _ , he thought. 

He half-closed his eyes and focused on the sound of his feet. Like an automaton, his body surged onwards. 

By some miracle, he reached the gate to the inner sanctum. He felt the bite of the silver handle he'd added on his last visit as if through thick layers of wool. _It_ _was still safe then._ He shouldered the door open and musty air rushed into his face, carrying with it the sharp scent of engine grease. He ignored the twist in his gut; he never expected he'd next visit this place in such dire circumstances. 

The machinery here was made over a century ago. The central stasis pod could theoretically mould flesh by tapping into vampiric shape-shifting abilities. Though, reports on its effects were mixed. Adrian had no idea how it would react to a dhampir. He'd only gotten so far as reading the research notes left behind. But, it was mostly forgotten by his father's kind nowadays, and that made this place better than any other option right now. He wrenched the lid open. He'd need it's supposed regenerative functionality to survive.

Adrian clambered in with less grace than a newborn foal. 

He'd originally been interested in whether this place could help him change his form into something more palatable. It wasn't exactly that he hated his body, it was more that presenting masculine tipped over the rock that led to the landslide. He knew in his bones that something needed to change. He couldn't endure eternity trapped in this unchanging arrangement of flesh. At the best of times, his body was an itchy woollen sweater: uncomfortable but functional. 

Through a haze, he spotted the control panel on the underside of the lid. With his remaining strength, he reached up to press  _ initialise  _ and closed his eyes. The pod closed with a soft hiss. A pinch in his left arm signalled the connection of the blood supply. Motors whirred and he felt the feather-light touch of aerogel against his skin. A mirroring pinch in his right arm could only have been the catalyst. His pain ebbed immediately.

His last conscious thought was:  _ I really hope this isn't a mistake _ .

Adrian dreamt. 

* * *

Beneath quivering skin, a captive ocean of blood and bile raged. Like any force of nature, it did not think. it did not feel. It simply  _ was _ . So great was its strength that it wore away bone to dust in mere seconds. Hands shrank into forearms. Feet shrank into legs. The once-body became a uniform droplet of quivering flesh. Gradually, droplets of liquid alabaster spread over its surface. The droplets joined to form a perfect stone egg, suspended in the void. After minutes, or perhaps eons, it began to emit a gentle white light. 

It was at this point that Adrian opened his eyes. They stung as a million different colours assaulted him. He stood in the inner sanctum, though every surface swirled with endless fractal patterns. He watched them, captivated. They spiralled down infinitely with colours he was sure had never been glimpsed by eyes of flesh and blood. He got the sense that he could stand here for the rest of time and still spot ever smaller details. Still, in the way of dreams, he knew he had a task to be getting on with. He had to continue higher. 

He gathered himself and shot through the ceiling, only pausing to think it impossible a few seconds after the fact. 

He moved incredibly fast. The earth shrunk beneath him. Planets raced past him, forming straight lines that left afterimages on his retinas. Comet tails fluttered over his face like lovers’ kisses. He flew straight through a burning star and caught alight in earnest. Rather than the expected pain, he felt elation. At this point, only his spirit remained. His body could not follow where he was going. 

With instinctual ease, he shaped himself into the form of a burning wolf. He took a moment to collect himself. The lights of the universe were truly beautiful from here. He began to wag his tail and bounded forward, leaving burning yellow paw prints in his wake.

When the universe had shrunk to a tiny point of light behind him, Adrian reached a great tree. Like the vault he had left behind, its form was defined by thin rays of light, twisting about each other in intricate, infinite patterns. He padded up to the tree and sat beside it. There was a pleasant breeze that set his fur tingling.  _ Really _ , he thought,  _ it would be much nicer to just stay here _ . 

He let his mind wander. It seemed to him that at its core, the flesh was an imperfect method of housing a soul. Perhaps, deep down, all people were all beings of starlight. No container could truly ever convey the light of a single person truthfully. It warmed his heart that perhaps he was not the only one whose vessel had failed him so abysmally. 

“You have travelled far, my friend.”

He tensed and turned to see an old woman sitting beside him. White hair drifted about her face like smoke. He found it difficult to pin down any other defining features. Her very being seemed to shift through a multitude of different states, appearing at once both plump and gaunt.

She continued on despite his confusion. “Though, I sense something yet that still ties you to the mortal realm.”

He felt a stone sink in his chest and nodded. It took him several moments to realise he could not speak as a wolf. Almost sheepishly, he morphed back into a humanoid shape. 

“Yes. My father. I have to stop him.”

She nodded sagely in response and directed her gaze forward. 

“Then you will be reborn. That which pains your soul will be sanded smooth like driftwood in the ocean’s waves. You will see your truest face in your reflection. I guarantee it.”

The wind blew fiery curls into his face. It seemed too good to be true, especially when he had never even tested the machine. 

“Surely there must be a price.”

She turned to him, her smile sad. “I rather think having one’s father do this,” she ran a finger over his chest, “is trauma enough for one day.”.

Adrian swallowed. 

“All I ask is that you sit with me while you wait. My view from here is spectacular, but the company is rather sparse”.

* * *

He plummeted back to Earth, the universe passing by him so quickly that he could do no more than be still and hope he arrived intact. He streaked down through the sky and crashed into the deep dark void at the centre of the vault. He woke to the tinkle of porcelain shattering and the sound of his own thundering heart.

His chest twinged painfully. It seemed he’d been woken early, the healing wasn’t complete.

He ran a tentative hand over it. Apart from lumpy knots of scar tissue, his chest was flat. He gasped. 

Before he could finish processing that fact, the pod began to tilt forward. With panic, he remembered it would only do that if the vault had been breached. The needles retracted from his arms with a quick hiss. The only person who knew about the vault was his father.

Tears pricked at his eyes. 

_ I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready.  _

The pod door peeled back and he rose up, his entire body thrumming with energy. He opened his eyes and relief washed over him. It was not his father. 

He’d later note with some irony that the first face he saw after his transformation was not his own, but that of a hunter with no small measure of disgust engraved upon his features. 

A man he’d come to know as 'Trevor-Fucking-Belmont'.

**Author's Note:**

> This started by me thinking:
> 
> "Hey, Adrian's a really trans-ass name". 
> 
> "Let's write fanfiction to process gender feels" and,
> 
> "Gee, I'd really love it if I could just shape shift".
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
